Kfar Etzion: The Community of Memory and the Myth of Return

The influence that the "politics of memory" had upon the creation of the Kfar Etzion Community of Memory, a community commemorating the 1948 fall of Gush Etzion, is investigated. An overview of the Jewish settlement of Kfar Etzion is presented, emphasizing the community's biblical significance as the birthplace of an Israeli Jewish nation & the political circumstances that engendered this understanding of the settlement's importance. Attention is then shifted toward exploring the relationships between succeeding generations of people who inhabited pre- & post-fall Kfar Etzion to better understand how the settlement's destruction would be commemorated by post-fall generations. The respective roles that the "myth of return" & the symbol of the "lone tree" have played in remembering Kfar Etzion's fall are then discussed. In addition, the Kfar Etzion Community of Memory's motivations for drawing multiple analogies between the fall of Kfar Etzion & various historical events, eg, the biblical sacrifice of Isaac & the Holocaust, are contemplated. The symbolic importance of the return of pre-fall residents to Kfar Etzion & the modifications made by subsequent generations in commemorating Kfar Etzion's destruction are also addressed. 3 Photographs. J. W. Parker